Kathy Kellison <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Are you working on a project to collect data on feral populations of
>  honey bees in the U.S.?

Hello Kathy,

I’m not involved in any such project.
The feralbeeproject.com is my project, which is for the promotion of feral 
stock in beekeeping, and for the preservation and protection of feral 
honeybee nests.  With a main goal to encourage the public to not remove 
feral nests if they are determined to pose little harm to health or 
safety. 

Another project I am currently working on is a survey of the feral 
population in my woodland area.  This after noticing the last few seasons, 
extreme competitiveness coming from woodland ferals and old bee trees 
being reoccupied surrounding my home.   Competitiveness is back, colonies 
are continually tested and if scouts find them weak they will be overrun 
with robbers.    

This could be simply the ‘return of competitiveness‘.  I’m assuming that 
maybe time has fogged my memory of just how aggressively competitive bees 
actually are.  This since varroa had the effect of nearly eliminating 
competition between colonies in my area since about 1993 or so. 

Also would be interesting to locate the source of hairless, jet black, no 
indication of striping feral scouts that have been visiting my yards 
testing my nucs for the past 2 seasons.  But the main goal of the project 
is to locate and get GPS on the feral colonies in my woodland area. 

Joe Waggle ~ Derry, PA ‘Bees Gone Wild Apiaries' 
FeralBeeProject.com 
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HoneybeeArticles

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************